DEMOGRAPHY IS DESTINY
Why mass immigration assists the European project
pdf link: Eurofacts Vol. 13, No. 15, (pp3/4), published 9 May 2008
In seeking to vary the continent's demographic make-up in pursuit of power the architects of the new political order are following in well-trodden footsteps.
Anthony Scholefield, a valued contributor to these columns, recently caused an embarrassed silence and a stiffening of the intellectual muscles when speaking at a London seminar on immigration. The remark which produced the chorus of in-drawn breaths was to the effect that the EU had a similar interest in managing large-scale movements of population to Hitler and Stalin. Scholefield was not. of course, suggesting that Mr. Barroso is as brutal or inhumane as the German and Russian dictators or that be displays an identical caste of totalitarian mind.
Political Order
His argument was that all rising political orders have an interest in managing demographic change because democracy is the ultimate determinant of the political order. In the words of August Comte: "Demography is Destiny".
In Scholefield's view the long term objective of EU policy is clear a uniform political order and a generation of loyal Homo Europeanus.
Residual national loyalties will be allowed to survive: it will still be possible to drink beer in pint mugs and to run the mile, although the potency of such cultural symbols of identity will fade. But power will have moved away from the ordinary voter and from national politicians.
All rising political orders have taken an interest in the demographic realities of their day. It is the natural preoccupation for those bent on establishing and maintaining a political order.
As an unpublished paper by Scholefield points out, the Romans famously settled demobilized legionnaires with land holdings in frontier areas in order to stiffen their defences. The Protestant plantations in Ireland, the movement of the French Acadians to Louisiana after 1763, the eurofacts arrival of British settlers in the Eastern Cape in the 1820s are all examples of emerging empires which sought to establish themselves by changing the demographics.
In the eighteenth century the Austrian empire was busy settling its 'military frontier' in Croatia with loyal Catholics while the Russian Empire was filling up the lands conquered from the Muslim Khans with ethnic Russians. In the nineteenth century the pace of Russian and Christian Balkan expansion pushed back the Ottomans from a large part of Eastern Europe.
China's policy in Tibet and Sinkiang in modern times follows the precedents of the European empires. Unnoticed by the world, there is a similar, flow of Indian nationals from the Ganges valley into the immense tribal areas of North Eastern India - nor has this been without conflict in Mizoram, Nagaland and Manipur.
National Identity
The biggest demographic reorganisation to have occurred outside the USSR in recent times was, of course, the mass movement carried out by the Allies at the end of the Second World War, the last gasp of Wilsonian and Lloyd Georgian national identity politics.
In this case, the national identity basis of the nation state required demographic change, as outlined by Winston Churchill in the House of Commons, 15th December 1944: "The transference of several millions of people would have to be effected from the east to the west or the north, and the expulsion of the Germans, because that is what is proposed – the total expulsion of the Germans – from the areas to be acquired by Poland in the west and the north. For expulsion is the method which, so far as we have been able to see, will be the most satisfactory and lasting".
He then commended the exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey after 1923.
The Potsdam Declaration stated, "The three governments recognise that the transfer to Germany of German populations, or elements thereof, remaining in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, will have to be undertaken. They agree any transfers that take place should be affected in an orderly and humane manner". In fact, it is thought that at least hundreds of thousands of Germans died as a result of this policy - a policy of removing all Germans, not only those who were considered hostile. Of course, many Germans had, indeed, committed crimes in these countries but it is a fact that this mass expulsion was widely welcomed and no politician from any party in Britain dissented during the 1944-1946 period.
Necessary Sacrifice
Most people who contemplate Europe's political future are more concerned about the mass transfer of Muslim people into Europe than about terrorist threats. Terrorism is a nuisance and has the power to shock but it can only become a potential major threat if the terrorists obtain and use weapons of mass destruction. The steady build-up of a minority clearly at odds with its host culture is far more significant and a far more intractable challenge to the national identity in the long term. This is, of course, not a problem when seen through EU eyes.
Any weakening of national identity is a necessary sacrifice.
When Mr Barroso declared: "Sometimes I like to compare the EU as a creation to the organisation of empire", British politicians expressed indignation and some even demanded retractions. But his words were entirely apt.
The main instrument in the creation of the new order is the 'free movement of people', a policy usually enunciated with misty-eyes by europhiles while its presumed economic benefits have been accepted even by eurosceptics.
The idea of free movement of persons surfaced in the Treaty of Rome as a means to allow EU-native workers to work outside their native EU countries not only by conferring 'rights' on intraEU movement but also by widening the benefits to include the right to start businesses, and the right to study at the British taxpayers' expense.
Nevertheless, the number of these movements is still quite small in relation to the total EU population.
The EU believes that those EU nationals who work or study in their non-native country are likely to be supportive of the EU political order - and the more of them the better. A new idea has now taken hold among EU policy makers which is that immigrants from outside the EU will become special supporters of the EU ideas as they will have no conflicting national loyalty. So Barroso is now proposing an intake of twenty million workers (plus dependents) with the right to 'circular migration', that is to move freely from one EU country to another.
If the nations of the EU are not changing into Homo Europeanus fast enough, ready-made imports will accelerate the process.
Lack of Policy
Demography is destiny and if the firm intention is to establish a political order a demographic policy is vital. Britain's lack of policy in relation to the inflows and outflows of population shows that the political elite regards demographic destiny as less important than 'human rights' and the needs of business for low-paid labour; this in turn is evidence that it has already surrendered real political power to the emerging political order, and no maidenly aversion of eurosceptic eyes can conceal this.
Anthony Scholefield, a valued contributor to these columns, recently caused an embarrassed silence and a stiffening of the intellectual muscles when speaking at a London seminar on immigration. The remark which produced the chorus of in-drawn breaths was to the effect that the EU had a similar interest in managing large-scale movements of population to Hitler and Stalin. Scholefield was not. of course, suggesting that Mr. Barroso is as brutal or inhumane as the German and Russian dictators or that be displays an identical caste of totalitarian mind.
Political Order
His argument was that all rising political orders have an interest in managing demographic change because democracy is the ultimate determinant of the political order. In the words of August Comte: "Demography is Destiny".
In Scholefield's view the long term objective of EU policy is clear a uniform political order and a generation of loyal Homo Europeanus.
Residual national loyalties will be allowed to survive: it will still be possible to drink beer in pint mugs and to run the mile, although the potency of such cultural symbols of identity will fade. But power will have moved away from the ordinary voter and from national politicians.
All rising political orders have taken an interest in the demographic realities of their day. It is the natural preoccupation for those bent on establishing and maintaining a political order.
As an unpublished paper by Scholefield points out, the Romans famously settled demobilized legionnaires with land holdings in frontier areas in order to stiffen their defences. The Protestant plantations in Ireland, the movement of the French Acadians to Louisiana after 1763, the eurofacts arrival of British settlers in the Eastern Cape in the 1820s are all examples of emerging empires which sought to establish themselves by changing the demographics.
In the eighteenth century the Austrian empire was busy settling its 'military frontier' in Croatia with loyal Catholics while the Russian Empire was filling up the lands conquered from the Muslim Khans with ethnic Russians. In the nineteenth century the pace of Russian and Christian Balkan expansion pushed back the Ottomans from a large part of Eastern Europe.
China's policy in Tibet and Sinkiang in modern times follows the precedents of the European empires. Unnoticed by the world, there is a similar, flow of Indian nationals from the Ganges valley into the immense tribal areas of North Eastern India - nor has this been without conflict in Mizoram, Nagaland and Manipur.
National Identity
The biggest demographic reorganisation to have occurred outside the USSR in recent times was, of course, the mass movement carried out by the Allies at the end of the Second World War, the last gasp of Wilsonian and Lloyd Georgian national identity politics.
In this case, the national identity basis of the nation state required demographic change, as outlined by Winston Churchill in the House of Commons, 15th December 1944: "The transference of several millions of people would have to be effected from the east to the west or the north, and the expulsion of the Germans, because that is what is proposed – the total expulsion of the Germans – from the areas to be acquired by Poland in the west and the north. For expulsion is the method which, so far as we have been able to see, will be the most satisfactory and lasting".
He then commended the exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey after 1923.
The Potsdam Declaration stated, "The three governments recognise that the transfer to Germany of German populations, or elements thereof, remaining in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, will have to be undertaken. They agree any transfers that take place should be affected in an orderly and humane manner". In fact, it is thought that at least hundreds of thousands of Germans died as a result of this policy - a policy of removing all Germans, not only those who were considered hostile. Of course, many Germans had, indeed, committed crimes in these countries but it is a fact that this mass expulsion was widely welcomed and no politician from any party in Britain dissented during the 1944-1946 period.
Necessary Sacrifice
Most people who contemplate Europe's political future are more concerned about the mass transfer of Muslim people into Europe than about terrorist threats. Terrorism is a nuisance and has the power to shock but it can only become a potential major threat if the terrorists obtain and use weapons of mass destruction. The steady build-up of a minority clearly at odds with its host culture is far more significant and a far more intractable challenge to the national identity in the long term. This is, of course, not a problem when seen through EU eyes.
Any weakening of national identity is a necessary sacrifice.
When Mr Barroso declared: "Sometimes I like to compare the EU as a creation to the organisation of empire", British politicians expressed indignation and some even demanded retractions. But his words were entirely apt.
The main instrument in the creation of the new order is the 'free movement of people', a policy usually enunciated with misty-eyes by europhiles while its presumed economic benefits have been accepted even by eurosceptics.
The idea of free movement of persons surfaced in the Treaty of Rome as a means to allow EU-native workers to work outside their native EU countries not only by conferring 'rights' on intraEU movement but also by widening the benefits to include the right to start businesses, and the right to study at the British taxpayers' expense.
Nevertheless, the number of these movements is still quite small in relation to the total EU population.
The EU believes that those EU nationals who work or study in their non-native country are likely to be supportive of the EU political order - and the more of them the better. A new idea has now taken hold among EU policy makers which is that immigrants from outside the EU will become special supporters of the EU ideas as they will have no conflicting national loyalty. So Barroso is now proposing an intake of twenty million workers (plus dependents) with the right to 'circular migration', that is to move freely from one EU country to another.
If the nations of the EU are not changing into Homo Europeanus fast enough, ready-made imports will accelerate the process.
Lack of Policy
Demography is destiny and if the firm intention is to establish a political order a demographic policy is vital. Britain's lack of policy in relation to the inflows and outflows of population shows that the political elite regards demographic destiny as less important than 'human rights' and the needs of business for low-paid labour; this in turn is evidence that it has already surrendered real political power to the emerging political order, and no maidenly aversion of eurosceptic eyes can conceal this.